Thousand & One Nights: Thirteenth Night: The King & The Sage

The Night. The story tellers and their audience were present. Dinarzad in the middle of the group. Shahriar and Shahrazad were seated. 

The story teller in the robe of Fisherman: Let us pick up  the thread of our story.

At the end of the day King Yunan gave sage Duban thousand dinars and sent him home. The King was amazed at the skill of the sage said to himself, "This man has treated me externally, without giving me any draught to drink or ointment to apply.
He is indeed a great wisdom, and is deserved to be honoured and rewarded. He shall be my companion, confident, and a close friend." The king spent his night happy at his recovery from illness. He was sound and healthy now.

Next morning. King went to the royal reception hall and sat on the throne attended by chief officers. The princes, viziers, and lords of the realm sat to his right and left. The king called for the sage. The sage entered and kissed the ground before him. The stood up and saluted him, seated him beside him, and invited him to eat with him. The king treated him intimately, showed him favours, and bestowed on him robes of honour, and many other gifts. Then he spent the whole day conversing with him, and at the end of the day he ordered that he be given a thousand dinars. The sage went home and spent the night with his wife feeling happy and thankful to God.

Next morning. As usual the viziers, princes and lords came to stand in attendance. One of the vizier, who was sinister and greedy, envious and fretful, and who felt that the sage was very much favoured by the king, and feared that king would dismiss him and appoint the sage in his place, approached the king. He genuflected and kissed the ground before him, said, "O excellent king, and glorious lord, it was by your kindness and with your blessings that I rose to prominence; therefore if I fail to advise you on a grave matter, I am not my father's son. If the great King and noble Lord commands, I shall disclose the matter to him. The King was upset and asked, "Damn you, what advice you have got?" The vizier replied, "Your Majesty, 'he who considers not the end, fortune is not his friend.' [1] I have seen your Majesty make a mistake; for you have bestowed favours on your enemy, who has come to destroy your power and steal your wealth.  Indeed you have pampered him and shown him many favours, but I fear that he will do you harm." The king asked, "Whom do you accuse, what do you have in mind, and at whom do you point your finger?" The vizier replied, "If you are asleep, wake up, for I point the finger at the sage Duban, who has come from Byzantium." The king replied, "Damn you, is he my enemy? To me he is the most faithful, the dearest, and most favoured of people, for this sage has treated me simply by making me hold something in my hand, and had cured me from the disease that had defied the physicians and the sages and rendered them helpless. In all the world, east and west, near and far, there is no one like him, yet you accuse him of such a thing. From this day onwards, I will give him every month a thousand dinars in addition to his rations and regular salary. Even if I were to share my wealth and my kingdom with him, it would be less than he deserves. I think that you have said what you said because you envy him. This is very much like the situation in the story told by the vizier of King Sindbad when the king wanted to kill his own son.

Night had gone, it was time put a stop to the story telling, for the present, and Dinarzad and her team parted.
End of the Section 


1. A word of caution against acting impulsively, or without thinking about the consequences.



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